He may be seated.
Are you thankful for our music ministry
and all that they do to lead us towards the throne of God?
And we're just so excited about that.
If you have your Bibles, Hebrews chapter number three,
I am so excited to preach to you today
because of all that we're gonna find out
in Hebrews chapter number three.
It is a challenge sometimes to preach through Hebrews.
It is not a simple book, but it is rich.
There is so much here.
And I want you to know that it can absolutely change your life.
Have you ever felt like you missed out on an opportunity?
Anybody ever been there?
Maybe it was an opportunity to get a job
that you thought maybe you should have gotten
and you didn't or maybe you didn't pursue something
that you should have in terms of a job.
Maybe it was a relationship that you should have invested in
and it didn't work out or a friendship
that man, if you only had a few years,
maybe you didn't know someone was gonna leave
and then they left and you're like,
man, I wish I would have spent more time with them.
Maybe it was a business opportunity.
Maybe it was like a purchasing opportunity.
You had the chance to buy something.
Who would go back and if you could go back in a time machine
and get a few baseball cards
that now would be worth something, right?
Or you had that mom that threw away your eyes.
I had a Mickey Man or a rookie card
of my mom threw it away or whatever.
I hear about that kind of thing all the time.
I've heard about situations where people had the opportunity
to invest in a company.
Like for instance, the guy who founded Atari.
Does anybody remember Atari?
The little joysticks and the, yeah, that was fun.
The guy who founded that had a guy named Nolan Bushnell
reportedly had the opportunity to invest $50,000
in seed money for an upcoming burgeoning company
you may have heard of.
If this $50,000 would have made him a third owner
of this little company called Apple.
Have you ever heard of Apple?
Apple computers, which today is valued at over $2 trillion.
Could you imagine?
Who thought he missed out?
Yeah, anybody have any Atari stuff now?
Okay, not so much, right?
Talk about missing an opportunity.
None of us wanna miss out on an opportunity.
In fact, they call it, anybody heard of FOMO?
Fear of missing out?
That's something people talk about.
I feel like I've got an opportunity for you guys
and I'm not a salesman today.
That's not really what I'm,
I'm not trying to pitch a sale here.
Last week, we talked about in Hebrews chapter three
verses one to about verse six,
this idea that Jesus Christ,
and of course this is the theme of our series
as we go through Hebrews, Jesus is greater.
Who agrees with me that Jesus is greater?
And what we saw and what I hope you came away with
and if it's your first time here,
I'm gonna catch you up with where we're at.
Jesus is greater, Jesus is superior in every way.
What we talked about last week
because the text talked about it
is that Jesus is superior at transformation.
That not only can Jesus save us, okay,
from our sin, from the effects of our sin,
from what it means to be lost
and without Christ, without hope,
there is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun.
You understand that.
Hell is real, eternal conscious torment.
Did that just ruin your day?
That's a real thing.
Heaven is real and he is not willing
that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
Okay, that's really good.
But not only does God wanna use Jesus Christ to save us,
Jesus wants to transform us.
In the Old Testament, God dwelt among his people,
there was a house that Moses built,
what was it we talked about last week?
Moses in the Old Testament had a house.
It was the people of God and all the law of God
and the services of God and the people of God.
There was literally the tabernacle of God
where the sacrificial system would happen
and once a year a priest would go into the Holy of Holies
and he would sprinkle the blood of a spotless lamb
on the mercy seat and he's the only one
that could go in once a year because that was a place
where the manifest presence of God was.
And to go and stand before God
to do that unrighteously or unholy,
you would literally die.
And so they literally, that's what would happen.
And so there was this house, a place where God built.
And what we learned last week is that Jesus also builds
a house and there's this amazing verse.
Look at verse number, chapter three, verse number six.
I love this.
But Christ is the son of his own house whose house are we.
We're his house.
He comes to live inside of us.
Anybody ever have a hard time changing yourself?
You know how I know you do?
One word, scale.
You guys have a scale at your house?
Some of you are like, no, I gave up on that years ago.
Right?
It's hard to change.
Who here agrees it's hard to change?
God can do it in us.
He comes and lives inside of us
and changes us from the inside out.
No, only does God want to give us the opportunity
to have our sins forgiven and be made right with him
to spend eternity with him forever.
He also wants to grow us into what he wants us to be.
He wants us to have an abundant, transformed life.
I want you walking away from last week's message
and this week's message, knowing this,
that to be saved, you don't have to clean up to get saved.
Salvation is what begins the cleaning up process.
God gives you his righteousness
and he takes away your sin.
I'm excited about that.
But God loves you so much
that he doesn't want to leave you like you are.
He wants you to grow.
He wants you to change.
He wants you to be transformed.
And I want you feeling this, okay?
I want you to feel this this morning.
That's the best life you could ever have.
Amen.
To have a life that is full of the Holy Spirit,
full of Jesus, full of all that God wants for you.
That's what God wants for you.
Don't be content just to be saved in a 10 church.
God wants so much more for you than that.
He wants to grow you into who he wants to be.
And then he wants to not dismiss you
but send you out to make a difference in the lives of people.
That's what God's called us to do.
This doesn't mean that in this life,
God's plan is for everyone to have prosperity.
I am not pitching you material prosperity.
In fact, sometimes having a victorious Christian life
means that you miss out on the things
that won't satisfy you anyway.
Sometimes, sometimes it takes sacrifice.
In fact, Jesus says, if any man want to come after me,
let him deny himself.
Take up his cross and follow me.
But God does want us to fully realize what it means
to have a victorious, mature, abundant spiritual life
and relationship with him.
Jesus is incredible at transformation
but there's something that will keep us
from being transformed.
There is something that will keep us
from this abundant, victorious Christian life.
Something that will keep us from the promised land,
as it will.
And that is what the Holy Spirit warns us about
in today's text.
This week, we're gonna study the rest of the chapter.
Last week, we learned that Jesus is great at transformation
because he showed us how he was compared to Moses.
The law could not transform us.
The law pointed out where we were wrong.
Pointed out, anybody try to keep the rules
and realize just cause I have rules,
doesn't mean I keep them, right?
Jesus shows up and he transforms us from the inside out.
And we're gonna study the rest of the chapter
and find out about what can keep us
from this incredible transformation
God wants to make in our lives.
I don't want you and I definitely don't want me
to miss out on all that God has for me.
I don't want that.
I'm not talking about heaven,
I'm talking about this mature, abundant spiritual life.
So because Jesus is greater at transformation,
we can partake in the transformed Christian life by faith
when we observe and obey three sections
that we're gonna see here in Hebrews chapter three,
verse number seven.
So we're gonna, I'm gonna lay this out for you.
If you have a bulletin, there's an outline in the middle
that'll help you walk us through this particular text, okay?
So let's look at Hebrews chapter three.
And in fact, what I'm gonna do,
because we read Psalm 95,
what you're gonna find out is gonna be important.
I wanna read this part, Hebrews chapter three,
and then come back to it.
So if you have your Bibles, Hebrews chapter three,
looking starting in verse number seven.
Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost say it,
today if you will hear his voice,
harden not your hearts as in the provocation
in the day of temptation and the wilderness,
when your father's tempted me, proved me,
and saw my works 40 years.
Wherefore, I was grieved with that generation
and said they do always err in their heart,
and they have not known my ways,
so I swear in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest.
Take heed, brethren.
Lest there be in any of you an evil heart of what?
What?
Unbelief.
In departing from the holy God, from the living God,
but exhort one another daily,
while it's called today,
lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin,
for we are made partakers of Christ
if we hold the beginning of our confidence,
said fast unto the end.
While it is said, today if you will hear his voice,
harden not your hearts as in the provocation.
God, we wanna have hearts that are softened towards you.
We wanna have hearts that are pliable and flexible
and open to the transformation that your spirit
and your son wanna do inside of us.
God, I pray that if there's someone here
that doesn't have that, that they would be encouraged today
while it's called today to not harden their hearts,
to not regard sin in their hearts,
to repent of that and to turn to you by faith,
to let you transform us from the inside out.
God, may you bless the reading of your word
and help me not to get in the way today.
In Jesus' name, amen.
So I wanna break this up, this passage,
into three parts, three sections.
The first section is a familiar illustration,
a familiar illustration.
In verse seven, you see him say wherefore,
and of course, whenever you say wherefore,
he's always referring back to what he's already said.
And what he's already said is, Jesus is greater than Moses.
Jesus is greater than Moses, he has a better house.
We've already talked about that
a little bit in the introduction.
And so because Jesus is better than Moses
and because God wants to come and dwell less,
because we're God's house, now he gives us a warning
and he does it by quoting
Psalm 95 verses seven through 11.
There's a parentheses in our English version.
It says wherefore, and then he says,
do you see what it says here?
Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost says,
I think that's an interesting thing,
he says, as the Holy Ghost says,
and then he goes on to quote almost verbatim,
Psalm 95, at the end part, you guys saw that?
You guys see that that's the same thing?
Now that's an interesting thing.
The Psalm had a human writer, but here,
Hebrews says, as the Holy Ghost sayeth,
and I just wanna take this moment to say,
the Bible says about itself that this is God's word,
not just the word of mere man.
So the Holy Ghost said it in the Psalm.
Now it's interesting, the Psalms,
were the hymn book, the song book of the Jewish people.
And so when he got into this particular section,
this book, Hebrews, is written to Jewish people,
and as he would have begun to quote this verse,
here's what I want you to think.
If I were to say to you, quote to you,
what can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the, how many of you guys heard a melody in your head?
You heard it?
Because you've been in church a long time.
If you've been in a conservative church
in the last 100 years in America, that's a great song,
and when you hear the lyric, you think of the song.
That's what they would have done when they were reading this.
This would have been a Psalm that they would have sung.
They would have had this, a lot of them memorized,
because it would have been something they sung in worship.
And it was a Psalm that referred back to
this really familiar illustration about Moses.
We're still talking about Moses.
We're still talking about the children of Israel.
And he says,
wherefore this little parenthesis gives this illustration.
Because God, because Jesus is better,
and because he has a better house and we're in his house,
I want you to remember, Hebrews says,
the author of Hebrews says, and the Holy Ghost says,
this little illustration.
There was a time where God wanted to give something
and do something in the heart of his people.
And they missed out on it.
Do you get it?
The Holy Spirit inspired lyrics called us
to a bad example, not to do what they did.
Now to give you this illustration,
I want to give us a framework.
They're gonna talk about how the Jews responded,
and then how God responded.
That's what he talks about in these verses.
The framework is given by three phrases in this text.
This framework is this.
First you see these three little words out of Egypt.
You'll see that in chapter three.
Let's see, verse 16.
For some, when they had heard it, did provoke,
how be it not all that came, do you see it?
Out of Egypt.
You see that?
That's the first location in these passages
that talk about, he's given this illustration.
So you remember the story, don't you?
The Jews started as a family.
Abraham had Isaac, Isaac had Jacob, Jacob had Judah,
and all of his family.
One of those was Moses, I'm sorry.
One of them was Joseph.
Joseph got sold into slavery.
There was a great famine, God used Joseph,
and all that happened there to get his family to Egypt.
That family grew like God said it would to Abraham.
That that nation would become like the sand of the seashore,
like the stars of the night sky.
And they grew and grew and grew,
and there arose a Pharaoh that knew not Joseph.
He put them into Boddhid in Egypt.
Then God sent a guy named Moses,
first in a basket that went along the Nile River
and that princess that drew him up out of the water.
God did that, by the way.
And then God used him and worked in his life
to get into the place where then he sent him back to them
as a deliverer, tellin' Pharaoh, let my people go.
10 plagues came, who guys remember the story?
Am I, do I repeat myself?
Okay.
They get taken out of this bondage
and then they go secondly into where?
Into the wilderness.
You'll find that mentioned in verse number eight.
Harden not your heart, as in the provocation,
in the day of temptation.
Do you see the phrase there?
In the wilderness.
If you've read the story told us in Exodus,
you know that the children of Israel
were in bondage in Egypt.
God sent Moses with them and with him the plagues
to motivate the Egyptians to let my people go.
That's exactly what happened and God led this people
out of Egypt.
Once they were out of Egypt,
they found themselves in the wilderness.
You'll see that location, again, mentioned in verse eight.
The last location you'll see mentioned is in verse 11.
You see it?
So I swear in my wrath, they shall not enter into my,
what does it say?
Into my rest.
Now take a moment with me as we think about this passage
and this illustration to think about who is being addressed.
In the first verse of the chapter,
back in chapter three, verse one,
he says, wherefore, who is he addressing?
Holy brethren, you see that?
Our holy brethren, Christians, people who are saved,
down in verse number 12, take heed,
what does it say?
Brethren, it is my deduction
that he's still talking to saved people.
Okay, he's talking to saved people.
These are people who have Jesus Christ as their profession.
It says in verse 12, right?
He says, as it says in verse one,
consider the apostle and high priest
of our profession, Christ Jesus.
These are people who have Jesus Christ as their profession.
In verse 12, brethren are mentioned again.
These are not just people who are brethren by nationality,
but through faith in Jesus Christ.
These are the sons and daughters of God the Father
and the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ.
So then you have that third phrase, into my rest.
The phrase into my rest is a reference
to the children of Israel going into the land of Canaan.
God delivered Israel out of Egypt
in order that they might go into Canaan, into rest.
So into rest here is a reference to the land of Canaan,
the promised land.
Do you guys remember what they said about Canaan?
It's a land that's flowing with,
sounds sticky, as Veggie Tales told us, right?
It's a reference to this amazing land.
It's this land that's flowing with milk and honey.
As Joshua and Caleb entered into that land
with those spies, they saw,
they had these huge grapes and huge fruit.
And they said this certainly is a good land.
Nobody denied that it was an incredible land.
This little phrase represents what I call here, not heaven,
but the victorious Christian life.
The abundant, fruitful Christian life.
Canaan land is not heaven.
We have sung many beautiful songs about heaven.
Many of them are good.
In our hymnals, there are songs that talk about Canaan land
and refer to it as heaven.
And I believe that as you study here,
this is not representative of heaven.
When you study the children of Israel
and when they went into the land of Canaan,
you'll find that there were battles there.
When you and I get to heaven,
we'll study war no more.
There's no more war in heaven.
There's no war in the new heaven and the new earth.
Who's excited about that?
This is a good deal for us.
We'll lay our war instruments down.
Canaan here represents this victorious Christian life.
There are battles in the Christian life,
but those battles are won through faith.
The Bible says in 1 John 5.4,
this is the victory that overcomeeth the world,
even our faith.
So, into rest represents this abundant,
abundant, transformed Christian life.
Out of Egypt represents salvation.
The phrase in the wilderness occurs in the 17th verse.
You see it verse 17,
but with whom he was grieved 40 years,
was it not them that had sinned,
whose carcasses fell in the wilderness?
The wilderness was between Egypt and Canaan.
The children of Israel journeyed for 40 years
in that wilderness.
It's called the wilderness wondering.
That phrase in the wilderness represents the life,
I believe, of a defeated believer.
It's a believer who's saved, they're out of Egypt,
but they're living a defeated, miserable, wasted life.
In my estimation,
some of the most miserable people on this planet
are people who are saved,
but have never grown,
who are living a life devoid of all that God wants them to have.
So, those are the parameters.
The three phrases that organize this passage
of scripture with for us.
This passage of scripture is saying that it's possible
for someone to be saved, redeemed by the blood,
yet now have, now not have that victorious,
overcoming Christian life that God wants for us to have.
And some of us find ourselves in those two places.
Sometimes we find ourselves in Canaan land,
in the promised land, walking with God,
doing what we ought to do,
and sometimes we find ourselves wandering
in the wilderness.
A spiritual Christian is a Canaan Christian.
A carnal Christian is a wilderness Christian.
That's what he's talking about in these verses.
He uses this Old Testament experience
of the children of Israel being in the wilderness
as a wandering, a caution to these Christians in his day
and by the Holy Spirit to you and me today,
that we not be content just to be saved
and never grow and never mature
and develop into becoming what God wants us to be.
It is this overcoming, the victorious, the productive
and fruitful Christian life that God wants us to have.
So that's the framework.
Now let's look at this story, okay?
Let's look at the story.
Look at verse seven.
First we see that the Jews rebelled.
The Jews rebelled.
He says, harden not your hearts.
This is the diagnosis of the Holy Spirit
that he made of the people of God
who believed enough to make it out of Egypt
but not enough to go into Canaan.
He says, harden not your hearts
as in the day of provocation.
Provocation means to provoke.
The problem that the Israelites had
is they provoked God.
They had a problem in their hearts.
They had wrong motivations, wrong attitudes, wrong intentions.
Behavior always flows from the heart.
The children of Israel had a problem.
Specifically the word here is xclaruno
and it means to harden or to make stubborn.
They were resistant to God.
He said they were in a time of temptation or testing
and they tempted God.
The idea is that they tried God.
They resisted him because of the stubbornness
of their hearts.
The Bible says that our behavior always follows our heart.
Jesus said it this way,
if we're out of the abundance of the heart,
what, the mouth speaks.
Out of the abundance of the heart,
the fingers tight.
Out of the abundance of the heart,
the feet go, the hands make.
Whatever comes in here will come out here.
What you do will show up because of who you are.
How did the children of Israel come to have a hardened heart?
Verse 12 says they had an evil heart of unbelief.
How did their heart grow hard?
In unbelief.
Verse 18, and to whom swear he
that they should not enter in his rest,
but to them that what?
Believed not.
Verse 19, you see it.
So we see that they could not enter
in because of what?
Unbelief.
The first step towards a hard heart
is to have an unbelieving heart.
An unbelieving heart.
God wants to be people of faith.
The just shall live by faith.
We're not just saved by faith.
We're sanctified by faith.
We're not just saved by faith.
We grow by faith.
We're not just saved by faith.
We live by faith.
Faith in who?
Faith in God.
The problem they had was an unbelieving heart.
It's always a heart.
God had miraculously delivered the children of Israel.
Think about it.
When they entered into that wilderness,
God didn't mean for them to stay but just a few months.
It was supposed to be just a passageway
to get them into Canaan.
God had delivered them out of the land of Egypt.
He had delivered them from the death angel
by the Passover lamb.
When they came to the Red Sea, God had miraculously
opened up the Red Sea.
They walked through the sea on dry ground
and God delivered them from Pharaoh and his armies.
God gave them a glory cloud to guide them in the day
and at night he gave them a pillar of fire.
God fed them with angels food.
What is it?
Manna from heaven.
God had done miracles galore.
You would think that the children of Israel
would have had a great faith in God yet
when you go back and read the Old Testament experience,
when they got to the wilderness,
the first time they had a problem,
they started doubting God.
Their hearts were filled with unbelief.
They didn't have any water.
So they started belly aching and grumbling
and complaining and blaming Moses.
The Lord said, why do you tempt me?
The point being, if God can deliver them
through a Red Sea, surely God can provide them
with some water.
Did they realize God could control the water?
Yes, they did.
But it started off doubting the ability of God
to meet their needs.
They went from doubt in their hearts
to grumbling in their hearts
and grumbling is basically a heart problem.
It's unbelief.
Then the grumbling hearts burst out
into complaining out of the outside.
They started outwardly complaining.
They went from outwardly complaining to openly rebelling.
Just, they had just gotten into the wilderness
and had open rebellion.
Their hearts became hard and they rebelled.
And so what did God do?
God responded.
That's what we see in verse 10.
Wherefore I was greed with that generation
and said they do always air in their heart
and they have not known my ways.
So I swear in my wrath, they will not enter into my rest.
Do you remember what happened?
They were grumbling.
They were complaining.
At one point they sent spies into the land
to see what Canaan land looked like.
12 spies went in and when they came back,
they were united on the condition of the land
but not united to what would be done
or what could be done.
Joshua and Caleb said something like,
the land is incredible.
God's giving us this land.
It's ours to take because God's on our side.
We can believe God for this place.
It's a promised land.
He tells Joshua later on when Joshua takes over,
hey, everywhere that the souls of your feet go,
that's gonna be yours.
Who likes that real estate deal?
That's what God wanted for them.
But then the other 10 spies says, yeah, it's a great place
but there are giants in the land.
We can't go in there.
We won't make it.
They turned back to the wilderness.
Why?
Because they were guilty of unbelief.
They were guilty of unbelief.
So for 40 years they wandered.
They whined and they wandered.
In fact, God told them that there was going to be
a generation of them that couldn't go in
even if that is what they desired.
And verse 17 tells us exactly what happens.
And it says about them,
whose carcass fell in the wilderness.
Every adult 20 years of age or older
that had been part of the rebellion against God died
in the wilderness.
What an illustration.
You get it with me?
What an illustration.
God had so expressly showed his mercy to them.
Think of the plagues that he deployed
to get them out of Egypt.
Think of the sea he parted to get them away from Pharaoh.
Think of the army he destroyed in their wake.
Think of the glory cloud he was leading them by
in the manna he was dropping into their plates.
I grew up in church in the last 40 years.
And when I was in children's church
we had this thing called flannel graph.
You guys remember flannel graph?
Okay, some of you don't.
And it was basically a felt board on an easel.
Typically a senior lady or senior man
teaching a bunch of little kids
and they had these little cut out pieces.
If your church had some money, they were pre-colored.
If they were cheaper, the teacher had to color them.
And then you put them on this felt board
and told the story.
And I remember it always felt like every year or two
we were in Exodus with the Israelites.
And I remember as a kid thinking about,
man, those Israelites were dumb.
If I saw God part the red sea,
it'd be easy for me to believe in God.
I've never seen that, but it'd be easy for me to believe.
If I had seen God beat Egypt with frogs,
what a cool way to take over frogs and flies and locusts.
Who thinks that's pretty funny?
I'm gonna beat them with frogs.
If God could do that, if I saw God do that,
it'd be easy for me to believe in God.
But yet they didn't believe.
And here's what I wanna say to us.
The reason that this is in here,
I wanna warn us not to look at the children of Israel
and go, oh yeah, that was dumb, I'd never do that.
Who are we in the story?
We're not Moses.
We're not Aaron, we're not always Joshua.
Sometimes we're those grumbling and complaining Israelites.
Are you with me?
Jesus is in our history.
He's not this thing that we know nothing about.
He's not this thing that we're looking forward to
in the sense of his first coming, right?
There's a lot of those things that those people
in the Old Testament heard prophesied about Jesus coming
and they didn't quite understand all of it.
I was in the young adults class today
and we were going through the process of getting to Jesus.
And I was in the young adults class today
and we were going through the process of getting to Jesus.
We were going through John and Damon was teaching
and he talked about how that some of the people
when they heard Jesus speak and preach,
they're like, yeah, but isn't Jesus gonna come from here
and come from there?
I mean, Christ when he comes, the Messiah when he comes,
come from here, come from there.
And they were confused, they were confused about exactly
what that first coming would be like.
Can I tell you that there's not a lot of confusion
you need to have about Jesus' first coming?
He prophesied when he would be born,
where he would be born, all of these things
and we can see it as history.
And yet sometimes, even as a believer,
how many of you guys know this as a word of God?
How many of you know that if you follow this,
God's gonna bless your life?
Do you always follow it?
Who are we?
We're the children wandering in the wilderness.
Anybody here ever get scared to do the right thing?
Even though you know it's right to do?
You know what that's called?
An evil heart of unbelief.
Are you with me?
And so here's the warning.
The warning is, if we think that they were unreasonable
and stubborn, we need to understand that sometimes
we're that way.
In these last days, God has spoken unto us by his son.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not prophecy to us.
It's history.
We have thousands of years of Jesus's resume
of transformation to check on.
We have all kinds of evidence that the Bible
is the word of God, yet at times we get scared
of people and problems.
We fight, what do we fight?
Unbelief.
We send out of the wrong ideas and emotions
that we are believing and keeping us from experiencing
that abundant and rich spiritual inheritance
that we have already been given,
that we have already been given.
And so, the simple message today,
you have a familiar illustration number two,
you have a practical application.
Here it is.
Three things, be cautious.
Be cautious.
Look at what he says.
Take heed brethren.
This is the second kind of section of the warnings
that we find in Hebrews.
This is similar to chapter two, verse one,
where he says, therefore we ought to give more earnest heed
to the things which we have heard,
lest at any time we should let them slip.
And he says in verse three,
how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?
He's warning them.
Here he's saying, take heed.
Here's another warning, brethren,
lest there be in you an evil heart of unbelief
and departing from the living God.
The word departing here is the word
from which we get our word apostasy.
Some have read this to mean that it's possible
for saved people to apostasize and be lost again.
In most of the passages in the Bible where this word
for apostasy is used, it's referred to,
it refers to those who have hourly professed faith
in the Lord and at some point in time denounce their faith
in the Lord and go into open rebellion
and doctrinal error and denial of the fundamentals
of the faith.
In fact, the Bible says that before the Lord Jesus Christ
comes in the rapture, there will be a falling away
and apostasy, people who were never genuinely saved.
They just profess to be saved.
But that's not the use of the word here.
The word departing here really means
just to step away from.
He's not talking about apostasizing in the sense
that you lose your salvation.
He's talking about that you step away
from the full blessing that God has for you
as a born again child of God.
What he's saying is don't step away, don't step back,
step forward, go on.
Don't make the mistakes that the disciples did.
When you have the opportunity, and folks,
we have the opportunity.
When you have the opportunity to grow into all
that God wants us to be, don't shy away because unbelief.
Believe it.
Move into it.
Grow.
God wants to transform your life.
Believe Him for it.
We see this all the time.
People who start off and make a profession of faith
and then drop out.
Sometimes I wonder if many of these people are even saved.
I think that some of these people who have professed faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ and fall with the wayside, though,
have never been truly saved.
But I do know that there are some who
have a real salvation experience.
But when the problems and the difficulties and trials
of life come along, sometimes they veer.
They wander.
They're not back in Egypt, but they're not in Canaan.
They're wandering in the wilderness of defeat.
You know people like that.
I know people like that.
Don't be like that.
Be cautious.
Courses can also apply to people who don't believe.
Unbelief is a dangerous thing.
Hardness of heart will lead to a lack of repentance, which
is the only hope you have.
Turn to Jesus and be saved.
So be cautious.
Let her be.
Be concerned.
Look at verse 13.
He says, instead of unbelief, instead of not departing,
he says to do what?
But be concerned.
Exhort one another how often?
Daily.
But exhort one another daily.
How often?
Daily.
Who needs encouragement daily?
You get tempted daily.
You get tempted not to believe daily.
You need encouragement daily.
While it's called today, lest any of you
be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
What is this encouragement and relationship in these verses?
It's a relationship to the evil heart of unbelief and sin.
I wonder what might have happened to the children of Israel.
Instead of grumbling and complaining and belly aching,
they encourage one another.
What if they had said to one another, how can we do this?
We can trust God.
God has let us this far.
He's not going to let us down.
Come on, let's keep going.
The Bible tells us to revoke one another to love and good works.
He says here, exhort one another daily.
Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
The word deceitful here means the trickery of sin.
Do you know why many people fail to go on to all that God
has for them?
Because they fall for the mask that sin puts on.
They fall for the trickery of sin.
Sin will trick you into thinking that the deepest needs
of your heart can be met by something or someone other
than the Lord Jesus Christ.
Sin is tricky.
I want to encourage our leaders today.
If you're a Sunday school leader, you're a deacon,
you're a trustee, you're a de-group leader,
you're a care group leader, I want
you to be encouragers of the people that God's entrusted
to your care.
I can't do for this whole church what
needs to be done in terms of helping
to do what this verse says to do.
Are you with me?
Our staff cannot do all that it takes to help encourage.
You know what the Bible says?
It's not just some holy class of people.
We're not holy.
Listen, if you haven't got this, I was about to say I'm normal.
I'm not quite normal.
I'm just a dude.
I'm just a person.
I can't do ever.
I am not your sole answer to what you need.
Jesus is your answer.
And I'm not saying it because I think everybody thinks that.
I'm just saying I'm going to let you down.
Sometimes I'm tempted to go back to the wilderness.
Sometimes I don't believe.
Not that Jesus has got.
I'm saying in the moment of temptation, are you with me?
Are you there?
I am a sinner.
I'm a sinner.
So are you.
But we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us.
And we have the church, this assembly,
the reason you need to show up when we show up
is because we need to provoke one another to love
and to good works.
I need it every day.
And so do you.
Are you with me?
You need it.
Church family, when you see a Christian friend
slacking a little bit, I'm not saying let's be legalistic.
I'm saying encourage, help.
Come on, we can do that.
Let's get everything in store that God has in store for us.
You know how the temptation to sin works?
Sin and Satan lie to us.
Sometimes we lie to ourselves.
We're tempted to believe thoughts like, oh man,
it's no big deal.
We're tempted to believe like, oh Jesus has already
forgiven it.
This won't bother me.
This won't affect me.
Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
God forbid.
You try it immediately.
Sometimes the temptation says, you don't have to do it again.
Just go ahead and try it.
You try it and immediately the devil says, now you've done it.
It's all over for you.
There's no hope for you.
Don't be tricked by sin or the devil.
Let her see be confident.
Look at verse 14.
Don't get lost in the weeds here with me.
He says in verse 14, for we are made partakers of Christ
if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast
to the end.
It always means if you've partaken in Christ,
the evidence of the fact that you have Christ in you
is that you will persevere to the end.
We don't do it so that we are in Christ.
We do it because we are in Christ.
Partaker here means a joint owner in the business.
The words used five times in Hebrews.
It's used one other time in the New Testament in Luke 5.7
when it talks about someone being fishing partners.
What he's saying is let's go on.
We're joint owners with Jesus Christ
in the great enterprise of Christianity,
which is the great enterprise of bringing people to faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you become a wilderness Christian instead of a canine
Christian and you cannot realize your participation
in the great enterprise of redemption, which
God is carrying on in this world.
He says in verse 14, we're made partakers in Christ
if we hold beginning of our confidence steadfast
in the end.
That word confidence is the word title deed.
That is in Christ, we have a title deed of salvation.
He's saying to get everything that the title deed gives to you.
Go on, be a full blown mature reproducing Christian.
We must believe God for all that he promised,
not only for our salvation, but for our sanctification.
That's the point.
We're saved by faith.
We're sanctified by faith.
And so that leads me to this third part.
And that's a section number three, an urgent summary.
An urgent summary.
We have a familiar illustration.
We have a practical application.
Be careful, be confident, be encouraging.
Section number three, an urgent summary.
Here it is.
Verse 15, Walid has said, today, today, today, today,
today, not tomorrow, not yesterday, today,
if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts,
as in the day of provocation.
We see two things in these last few verses.
Number one, we see urgency.
The writer repeats the scripture he's already
quoted from Psalm 95 saying the word today.
You see that word in verse seven, today.
You see it in verse 15, today.
You see it in verse 13, today.
The Bible uses this word today to give us a message to the saved,
where you have come from and how you have grown in the past
is important, of course.
But where are you at today?
What is your heart with Jesus like today?
Are you with me?
Where are you at?
There's an urgency.
Do you know when it's time for you to make up your mind
that you're going to go on and be everything God wants you to be?
And what I mean by that is that you're
going to allow Jesus to do that in you.
You're going to partner with him.
How?
By faith.
He's the one that does it.
We just submit to what he's doing.
When do you need to do that?
I'll do it tomorrow.
Next week, you know what?
You may not have the opportunity next week.
You may not have the opportunity tomorrow.
What is it?
It's today, today.
That leads us to this second thing.
He's urgent about this summary of what he's been saying.
You have an urgency.
You have a summary.
What does it say?
While it is said today, if you will hear his voice,
harden not your hearts as in the day of provocation.
For some, when they had heard, they did provoke.
How be it not all that came out of Egypt by Moses,
but with whom was he grieved 40 years?
Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell
in the wilderness?
And to whom swear he that they should not enter into his rest,
but because they believe not, see we
that they could not enter in.
So we see that they could not enter in because of what?
Unbelief.
So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
This is the summary statement of which he is so concerned.
It must be of utmost concern to us as well.
Where are you at in terms of your heart towards God?
What are you believing in right now about your sin
and your Savior?
Today is the high water mark of your walking with the Lord
sometime in the past, or is it today?
Was there a time in your relationship with God,
in your fellowship with God, in your love for the Lord,
in your passion for his mission and ministry?
Was there a time in your past that was greater than it is now?
Has your love for the Lord and passion
for the things of the Lord waned?
Nobody would tell us?
Maybe that identifies some kind of heart of unbelief.
And maybe what the Spirit is trying to say to you
through this text today is, today, today, let's do the things,
the works in keeping with repentance.
Let's adorn the transformation that Jesus wants to do
in our lives well.
What will keep us out of the promised land
of the victorious Christian life
that is marked by being transformed
and helping others in that process,
of believing God for all that he wants to do?
What is it that's gonna keep us from this transformation?
It's a heart of unbelief.
Jesus is incredible at transformation.
He has come to dwell in us as his house.
He is in us if we are saved, and if we are saved,
he will continue to work on us to the end.
That is his part in the transformation process.
What is our part?
Our part is to believe.
Our part is faith.
Our part is to believe.
Our part is faith.
Our part is like I talked about last week.
Jesus said, abide, abide in me.
Remain in me.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
You need to be in God's word every day.
And not to read it to check it off the list.
You need to read it to understand it,
and to obey it, and to share it,
and to know it, and to love it,
and to share it with others, that's the secret.
Believe.
If it's not getting in your head,
it won't get to your heart.
You need more than what you can get
in the service times at this church.
You need that too, but you need God's word every day,
and we need to help each other do that.
We need to encourage one another to do that,
because there is such a thing as the deceitfulness of sin.
There is such a thing as wilderness wandering.
What will keep us out of the promised land
of victorious Christian life
that's marked by being transformed
and helping others in that process of believing God
for all that he wants to do.
It is this heart of unbelief.
It's a lack of faith and trust in God.
It's thinking that we can do it on our own.
It's thinking we can do life on our own.
It's thinking that our sin is no big deal.
It's thinking that you can live in the Christian life
without spending time with God, with God's people,
with seeking direction.
So I say, with the writer of Hebrews,
to myself first and to us today, if you regard sin in your heart,
repent today, if you'll hear his voice,
heart and not your heart.
Today, if you're not saved,
repent and believe in Jesus.
Today, if you're trying to do all of this Christian life
on your own, repent, repent and believe in Jesus,
not just for your salvation,
but for transformation and for ministry.
Yesterday is gone.
Tomorrow is not guaranteed.
Today is the day.
Today is time for us to believe today.
Today, would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me?